Global advertising group Omnicom is running hard at AI, seeing it as a productivity booster and a clear path to competitive advantage.
“We’re responding with AI as if our hair was on fire,” CEO John Wren told market analysts in response to a question.
Generative AI will a profound effect on the advertising industry and Omnicom, says Wren.
The global advertising groups are adopting AI faster than many analysts predicted in a form of technology arms race, a new industrial revolution.
“We are quickly embracing the technology as we see massive opportunities to boost the productivity of our people and deliver better work to our clients,” Wren at Omnicom told a briefing about June quarter results.
“As with any new technology, we're working closely with our clients to take advantage of the benefits, while being mindful of its limitations, risks, and privacy concerns.
“We have a significant competitive advantage in harnessing the power of generative AI through our open operating system Omni.”
The data engine Omni, with investment over a decade, is used by more than 50,000 people in more than 100 countries. It has more than 1 billion IDs globally with data from first, second and third-parties.
Generative AI will turbocharge Omni users by helping them harness, deploy and activate a rich set of data.
Omnicom in June, at the Cannes Lions, announced the launch of Omni 3.0, the next-generation operating system where every experience will be powered by generative AI.
“The experience is delivered through Omni Assist and is the result of our partnership with Microsoft, which allowed us to be one of the first companies to be given full access to their ChatGPT model,” says Wren.
“Omni Assist is a custom-trained enterprise-level Omnicom proprietary version of ChatGPT that enhances every task within Omni including research, creating, planning, and executing marketing campaigns.
“Omni Assist will give our agency teams the power to do their jobs more efficiently and focus on high-impact work for our clients.”
Omnicom also unveiled several other collaborations, including Google Marketing Cloud and access to Adobe's Firefly creative generative AI models.
And Omnicom also has a first-mover collaboration with Amazon Web Services, pairing Omnicom's open operating system with AWS’ generative AI services.
This will enable the automation of advertising campaigns and the creative journey.
“We want to be leaders in this area,” says Wren.
“We want to be in a unique position to offer clients and potential clients the best technology, the best tools in the marketplace at any given time.
“And we know that if we're providing a premium service, we can expect to be paid fairly for that.”
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